Origins: Newry Highwayman

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Newry Highwayman
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 25 - 04:49 PM

I liked Sean Cannons version, fine singer

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Newry Highwayman
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Dec 25 - 07:41 AM

Great Perfomances:

From Sabine Baring-Gould, "A Book of the West" (1899):

"I was sitting in a little seaport tavern in Cornwall one winter's evening, over a great fire, with a company of very old 'salts,' gossiping, yarning, singing, when up got a tough old fellow with a face the colour of mahogany, and dark, piercing eyes, and the nose of a hawk. Planting his feet wide apart, as though on deck in a rolling sea, he began to sing in stentorian tones a folk-song relative to a highwayman in the old times, when Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate at Westminster, put down highway robbery.

"The ballad told of the evil deeds of this mounted robber of the highways, and of how he was captured by 'Fielding's crew' and condemned to die. It concluded: —

When I am dead, borne to my grave,
A gallant funeral may I have ;            
Six highwaymen to carry me,
With good broad swords and sweet liberty.

Six blooming maidens shall bear my pall,
Give them white gloves and pink ribbons all;
And when I'm dead they'll tell the truth,
I was a wild and a wicked youth.

"At the conclusion of each verse the whole assembly repeated the two final lines. It was a striking scene; their eyes flashed, their colour mounted, they hammered with their fists on the table and with their heels on the floor. Some, in the wildness of their excitement, sprang up, thrust their hands through their white or grey hair, and flourished them, roaring like bulls.

"When the song was done, and composure had settled over the faces of the excited men, one of them said apologetically to me, 'You see, sir, we be all old smugglers, and have gone agin the law in our best days.'"

(Ah! To be wild and wicked - and especially a youth!)

Subject: RE: Origins: Newry Highwayman
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Dec 25 - 09:09 AM

Edward Bunting collected a version in Drogheda in 1803. The text is pretty much the familiar one, and the tune is easily recognizable as "The Croppy Boy."

For some reason Bunting gives the title as "The Robber, or Charley Reilly."

No Reilly (or anyone else) is mentioned in the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Newry Highwayman
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Dec 25 - 04:11 PM

Adelaide Calvert (1836-1921), "Sixty-Eight Years on the Stage" (1911):

"About that time [1845-50] we had a servant, a middle aged woman, who had a peculiar hobby. She had been for years a collector of street ballads. They were printed upon long narrow strips of paper, and sold in the streets by hawkers, who carried them, hoisted on high, affixed to T shaped pieces of wood, from which they fluttered like streamers. They were usually about a yard long, and were sold at the price of one halfpenny. I used to hear her crooning these whilst she was doing her work, and my childlike curiosity was at once aroused. We had several confidential chats about these lyrics, and one day she took me into her room and showed me her collection. There were rolls and rolls of them. Of course, I wanted to read them, and was allowed that privilege, but they were certainly not 'milk for babes.' There were a few nautical ballads, but the majority of them recounted tales of adventure—highway robbery—burglary—coining—and even a case or two of murder. Claude Duval, Gentleman Jack, Dick Turpin, and Jack Sheppard were some of the heroes.

"With my aptitude for quick study, I committed a lot of these to memory, as I found them so extremely fascinating; but with the exception of a few disjointed lines, they have now completely faded from my remembrance. I can only recall one in its entirety, supposed to be written by a young gentleman sentenced to death, in a time when highway robbery was followed by the extreme penalty of the law. This poetic gem is, I think, worth quoting, as a curiosity.

   'At seventeen I took a wife,
    I loved her dearly, as I loved my life,
    And, to maintain her both fine and gay,
    I went a-robbin’ on the 'ighway!

"The gentleman evidently lived a dual life, as a verse later on says—         

    'I robbed much gold, I do declare,
    And got a place round by Grosvenor Square;
    I shut the shutters and bade them good-night,
    And then went home to my heart's delight.'

"After which he proceeds as follows—

   'To Covent Garden I went my way
   ?ll with my bloomin’ to see the play.
   There Fielding's gang did me pursue—
   Took unawares by that cursed crew!'

Fielding, it may be mentioned, was the celebrated Bow Street detective. Some very modest requests are embodied in the last two verses.

   'Oh! when I’m dead and in my grave,
   A decent funeral let me have:
   Six Highwaymen to carry me —
   Give them broadswords and sweet Liberty!

'Six blooming maids to bear my pall —
   Give them white gloves and ribbons all.
   And when I’m dead they’ll speak the truth -
   There's gone a wild and a wicked youth!

"I can remember just a fragment of another ballad entitled 'On the Banks of Sweet Dundee'...."